Firm Is Gatekeeper To Vast Flow of Murky Oshore Secrets€¦ · The Panama Papers. Mossack Fonseca...

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SEND TO YOUR INBOX FOLLOW INVESTIGATION ICIJ · The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Projects About ICIJ Donate By Martha M. Hamilton In this story Founding partners of Mossack Fonseca had international pedigrees and backgrounds in the worlds of money, power and secrets The law firm helps clients respond swily to changes in laws, shiing business from one secrecy jurisdiction to another Among additional services oered are yacht and plane registrations, and, for some clients, handling of finances Mossack Fonseca kept a low profile – until recent scandals brought international attention Apr 3, 2016 Reading time: 15 minutes Firm Is Gatekeeper To Vast Flow of Murky Oshore Secrets Files show client roster that includes drug dealers, Mafia members, corrupt politicians and tax evaders — and wrongdoing galore INTRODUCTION STORIES PEOPLE DATA GAME The Panama Papers

Transcript of Firm Is Gatekeeper To Vast Flow of Murky Oshore Secrets€¦ · The Panama Papers. Mossack Fonseca...

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FOLLOW INVESTIGATION

ICIJ · The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Projects About ICIJ Donate

By Martha M.Hamilton

In this story

Founding partners of Mossack Fonseca hadinternational pedigrees and backgrounds inthe worlds of money, power and secrets

The law firm helps clients respond swi�ly tochanges in laws, shi�ing business from onesecrecy jurisdiction to another

Among additional services o�ered are yachtand plane registrations, and, for some clients,handling of finances

Mossack Fonseca kept a low profile – untilrecent scandals brought internationalattention

Apr 3, 2016Reading time:15 minutes

Firm Is GatekeeperTo Vast Flow ofMurky O�shoreSecretsFiles show client roster that includesdrug dealers, Mafia members, corruptpoliticians and tax evaders — andwrongdoing galore

INTRODUCTION STORIES PEOPLE DATA GAME

The Panama Papers

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Mossack Fonseca & Co. had a problem in Vegas.

Legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegasclaimed that the Panama-based law firm hadcreated 123 companies in Nevada that had beenused by a crony of Argentina’s former president tosteal millions of dollars from governmentcontracts. A subpoena demanded that MossackFonseca turn over details about any money thathad flowed through the Nevada companies.

Mossack Fonesca didn’t want to provide thisinformation. For a firm that specializes in settingup hard-to-trace o�shore companies for clientsaround the world, confidentiality is a must.

The law firm tried to block the subpoena bydenying that its Las Vegas operations, run by acompany called M.F. Corporate Services (Nevada)Limited, were part of the Mossack Fonseca group.

The firm’s Panama-based co-founder, JürgenMossack, testified under oath that “MF Nevada andMossack Fonseca do not have a parent-subsidiaryrelationship nor does Mossack Fonseca control theinternal a�airs or daily operations of MF Nevada’sbusiness.”

But secret records obtained by the InternationalConsortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), theGerman newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung andmore than 100 other media partners raise newdoubts over that sworn testimony.

Not only do they show that the Nevada subsidiarywas wholly owned by Mossack Fonseca but that,behind the scenes, the firm took steps to wipe

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A sign for MF Corporate Services outside abuisness complex in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo:

McClatchy / Ronda Churchill

potentially damagingrecords from phonesand computers to keepdetails of their clientsfrom the United Statesjustice system.

One email from 2014,for instance, instructsthat any link between

Mossack Fonseca’s central computing system inPanama and the Nevada o�ice “has to be obscureto the investigators.” Other emails report that IToperatives working via remote control fromPanama “tried to clean the logs of the PC’s in theNevada o�ice” and planned to run a “remotesession to eliminate the traces of direct access toour CIS” — the firm’s computer informationsystem.

The documents even show that a firm employeetraveled from Panama to Vegas to whisk paperdocuments out of the country. “When Andrés cameto Nevada he cleaned up everything and broughtall documents to Panama,” a Sept. 24, 2014 emailsaid.

In comments to ICIJ, Mossack Fonseca“categorically” denied hiding or destroyingdocuments that might be used in an ongoinginvestigation or litigation.

The more than 11 million documents obtained byICIJ — emails, bank accounts and client records —represent the inner workings of Mossack Fonsecafor nearly forty years, from 1977 to December 2015.They reveal the o�shore holdings of individualsand companies from more than 200 countries and

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territories.

They recount example a�er example of ethical andlegal wrongdoing by clients and provide evidenceof a firm happy to act as a gatekeeper to thesecrets of its clients, even those who turn out to becrooks, members of the Mafia, drug dealers,corrupt politicians and tax evaders.

The files show that business has been good.

Today, Mossack Fonseca is considered one of theworld’s five biggest wholesalers of o�shoresecrecy. It has more than more than 500 employeesand collaborators in more than 40 o�ices aroundthe world, including three in Switzerland and eightin China, and in 2013 had billings of more than $42million.

Mossack Fonseca responded to questions raised byICIJ’s findings saying that “for 40 years MossackFonseca has operated beyond reproach … Our firmhas never been accused or charged in connectionwith criminal wrongdoing.”

Spokesman Carlos Sousa said that the firm “merelyhelps clients incorporate companies.”

That doesn’t amount to “establishing a businesslink with or directing in any way the companies soformed,” Sousa said.

Firm’s roots

Mossack Fonseca traces its beginnings to 1986,when Ramón Fonseca merged his small, one-secretary law firm in Panama with another localfirm headed by Jürgen Mossack, a Panamanian ofGerman origin.

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Mossack Fonseca co-founder Ramón Fonseca.

“Together,” Fonseca later mused to a journalist,“we have created a monster.”

Both men had international pedigrees andbackgrounds in the worlds of money, power andsecrets.

Fonseca was born inPanama in 1952 andstudied law andpolitical science at theUniversity of Panamaand the LondonSchool of Economics.As a young man, he

once recalled, he hoped to save the world, firstyearning to be a priest and later working for sixyears for the United Nations in Geneva.

“I didn’t save anything, I didn’t make any change,”he recalled in a television interview in 2008. “Idecided then, as I was a little more mature, todedicate myself to my profession, to have a family,to get married and have a regular life … As onegets older, you turn more materialistic.”

Mossack was born in Germany in 1948. He movedto Panama with his family in the early 1960s,according to his law partner.

Mossack’s father had been a member of theWa�en-SS, the notorious armed wing of the NaziParty during World War II, according to U.S. Armyintelligence files obtained by ICIJ.

A�er the war the father o�ered his services to theU.S. government as an informant, the files show,claiming “he was about to join a clandestineorganization, either of former Nazis now turned

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Communist . . . or of unconverted Nazis cloakingthemselves as Communists.” An Army intelligenceo�icer wrote that the o�er to spy for the U.S. mightsimply be “a shrewd attempt to get out of anawkward situation.”

Nevertheless, the old intelligence files indicate thatMossack’s father later ended up in Panama, wherehe o�ered to spy, this time for the CIA, onCommunist activity in nearby Cuba.

A�er earning a law degree in Panama in 1973, theson worked for a time as a lawyer in London beforereturning to Panama to start the firm that he wouldlater merge to form Mossack Fonseca & Co.

Today, both partners move in the highest circles ofPanamanian society.

As well as being a lawyer, Fonseca leads an equallyhigh profile second life as an award-winningnovelist. Among his books is “Mister Politicus,” apolitical thriller that, his literary website says,“articulates the tangled processes thatunscrupulous o�icials use to gain power andachieve their detestable ambitions.”

Fonseca knows the world of politics through hiswork until recently as a top adviser to thePanamanian President, Juan Carlos Varela.

Fonseca announced in early March that he wastaking a leave of absence from that position a�erallegations that the Mossack Fonseca’s Braziliano�ice was involved in a still-growing bribery andmoney-laundering scandal centered on Brazil’sstate-controlled oil company. He took the action,he said, “to defend my honor and my firm.”

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Mossack Fonseca co-founder Jürgen Mossack.

Denying any involvement in wrong-doing during atelevision interview, he used an analogy thecompany has employed before, saying that if ano�shore firm is put to bad use, the company is nomore culpable than an automobile factory thatbuilt a car later used in a robbery.

Mossack is a memberof the prestigious ClubUnion, where hisdaughter Nicole madeher debut in 2008. Healso served on theConarex, Panama’scouncil on foreignrelations, from 2009 to 2014.

Mossack’s holdings, according to the files obtainedby ICIJ, include a teak plantation and other realestate, an executive helicopter, a yacht named RexMaris and a collection of gold coins.

Path breaking in the BVI

The merger that created Mossack Fonseca came ata di�icult time in Panama’s history. The countryfaced political and economic instability undermilitary dictator Manuel Noriega, who was gettingunwelcome attention because of growing evidencethat he was involved in money laundering and drugrunning.

In 1987, with Panama under a shadow, MossackFonseca made its first big move abroad,establishing a branch in the British Virgin Islands,which a few years before had passed a law thatmade it easy to set up o�shore companies withoutpublic disclosure of owners and directors.

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Road Town, British Virgin Islands. Photo: ABCFour Corners

“Mossack Fonseca was the first to come fromPanama to the BVI and others followed,”Rosemarie Flax, Mossack Fonseca’s longtimemanaging director there, told a British VirginIslands news outlet in May 2014.

Today, the BritishVirgin Islands arehome to about 40percent of the world’so�shore companies. Ofthe companies thatappear in MossackFonseca’s files, oneout of every twocompanies — more

than 113,000 — were incorporated in the BritishVirgin Islands.

Tales of the South Pacific

Mossack Fonseca made another significant move in1994.

It helped the tiny nation of Niue — a South Pacificcoral outcrop with a population of fewer than 2,000— cra� legislation that provided for incorporationof o�shore companies. The law firm had pickedNiue, Mossack later told Agence France-Presse,because it wanted a location in an Asia-Pacific timezone and because it would face no competitors: “Ifwe had a jurisdiction that was small, and we had itfrom the beginning, we could o�er people a stableenvironment, a stable price.”

The firm then signed a 20-year-deal with the smallatoll’s government for exclusive rights to registero�shore companies in Niue. Importantly, Niue

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o�ered registration in Chinese or Cyrilliccharacters, making it attractive to Chinese andRussian customers.

By 2001, Mossack Fonseca was doing so muchbusiness out of Niue that it was paying theequivalent of $1.6 million of the Niue government’sprojected $2 million annual budget.

But the firm’s cozy relations with the island nationalso began attracting unwanted scrutiny.

That same year the U.S. State Departmentquestioned the “awkward sharing arrangements”between Niue and Mossack Fonseca and warnedthat Niue’s o�shore industry had been “linked withthe laundering of criminal proceeds from Russiaand South America.”

The Financial Action Taskforce, anintergovernmental organization set up by majornations to combat money laundering, put Niue ona blacklist of jurisdictions that were failing to takesteps to prevent money laundering, threateningeconomic sanctions.

Though Mossack denied that Niue was involved inmoney laundering, in 2001 the Bank of New Yorkand Chase Manhattan imposed embargoes ontransfers of dollars to Niue. In 2003, Niue declinedto renew four Mossack Fonseca-incorporatedcompanies, signaling that it would be shuttingdown the firm’s exclusive franchise.

Shi�ing operations

Losing Niue didn’t slow Mossack Fonseca down. Itsimply shi�ed its operations, with the law firmencouraging customers who had companies in

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Niue to simply re-incorporate in the nearby nationof Samoa.

The switch was part of a pattern that emerges inthe documents. When legal crackdowns havehindered Mossack Fonseca’s ability to serve itsclients, it has quickly adapted and found otherplaces to work.

When the British VirginIslands cracked downon bearer shares in2005, MossackFonseca moved thatparticular business toPanama.

Companies that havebearer shares don’tdisplay an owner’sname. If a company’sbearer certificates arein your hands, youown the company.Bearer shares havelong been considereda vehicle for moneylaundering and other

wrongdoing, and have been graduallydisappearing worldwide. In some jurisdictions,they are still allowed, although subject to morerestrictions.

Mossack Fonseca’s ability to move its businessswi�ly shows up in a big increase in incorporationsin one of those jurisdictions, the Caribbean islandAnguilla, which saw the number of companiesincorporated there more than double between

The hunt forbearer shares

1980 1990 2000 2010

BAHAMAS BELIZE

BRITISH ANGUILLA BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

NIUE PANAMA

SAMOA SEYCHELLES

URUGUAY

Companiesheld bybearershares o�en don’t need toregister an owner’s name –ownership is determined bywhoever holds the sharecertificates, providing a deeplevel of secrecy. When theBritish Virgin Islands cracked

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2010 and 2011. Anguilla is now one of MossackFonseca’s top four jurisdictions for incorporations.

Mossack Fonseca has also expanded its operationsto take care of the additional needs of itscustomers, including registering private aircra�and yachts.

By 2006, according to the files, Mossack Fonsecaexpanded its business further by handling thefinances of some clients or, as the companydescribed it, “discretionary portfoliomanagement.”

According to the documents the firm’s in-houseasset manager operations — called Mossfon AssetManagement S.A., or MAMSA — handled more than4,700 transactions and at least $1.2 billion in clientmoney between mid-2007 and mid-2015.

MAMSA worked with several banks, including atleast two that have been the subjects of moneylaundering investigations: Banca Privadad’Andorra, accused by the U.S. TreasuryDepartment in a 2015 report of money launderingfor powerful criminal gangs, and Deutsche BankSwitzerland, whose parent company has beeninvestigated by authorities in the United Kingdomand the United States for possible moneylaundering for Russian clients. The U.S. treasurywithdrew its finding on Banca Privada d’Andorraon Feb. 19, 2016, saying that it “no longer operatesin a manner that poses a threat to the U.S. financialsystem.”

The former non-executive chairmen of the bank,brothers Ramon and Higini Cierco, whose family isthe majority shareholder, said that they believed atthe Treasury action could not withstand a court

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A Commerzbank branch in Frankfurt, Germany.Photo: Shutterstock / Vytautas Kielaitis

challenge and that the allegations were based oncases that the Andorran regulator has “been awareof for years.”

Secrecy for sale

The files show that as well as Deutsche Bank, thefirm works with some of the world’s other biggestfinancial institutions, such as HSBC, SociétéGénérale, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Commerzbank,in some cases to help the banks’ clients set upcomplex structures that make it hard for taxcollectors and investigators to track the flow ofmoney from one place to another.

Mossack Fonseca saidthat allegation that itprovides structuresdesigned to hide theidentity of owners is“completelyunsupported andfalse.”

Société Générale andCredit Suisse said theyemphasize taxcompliance and arevigilant against fraudand money laundering.

Credit Suisse said that, since 2013, it has beenputting in place programs that ask private clientsto provide evidence of tax compliance or lose theirbanking relationship.

“The allegations are historical, in some casesdating back 20 years, predating our significant,well-publicized reforms implemented over the last

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few years,” said Rob Sherman, a spokesman forHSBC in New York.

UBS said it knows the identity of the owners of allcompanies that it is asked to work with and hasstrict anti-money-laundering rules. Deutsche Banknoted that it reached an agreement Nov. 24, 2015with the U.S. Justice Department to pay $31 millionin exchange for a non-prosecution agreement in aU.S. investigation of Swiss banks that helped U.S.citizens evade taxes.

Commerzbank said it would have no comment.

The real owners of bank accounts that appearunder the name of anonymous o�shore companiesregistered by Mossack Fonseca may be hiddenbehind so-called nominee directors — stand-indirectors supplied by Mossack Fonseca — whoprovide cover for the real owners.

Depending on how much a client pays, more thanone secrecy jurisdiction and more than oneanonymous company can be involved, adding tothe frustration of authorities if they try to trace thereal owners.

In Panama, Mossack Fonseca’s products includeprivate foundations, which are not subject to taxesin Panama and operate under a law that does notrequire the names of the founders or beneficiariesto be revealed.

Other activities found in the files include MossackFonseca changing and backdating documentswhen a client is in trouble and allowing customersto hide their assets by setting up foundations inPanama that initially list non-profits such as theWorld Wildlife Fund as the beneficiary but allow

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the customer to change the beneficiary at will.

Backdating is a common industry practice,sometimes reflecting the date of a decision madebefore it was recorded, Mossack Fonseca said. Theaim “is not to cover up or hide unlawful acts.”

In one case, the firm helped a financial adviceauthor from New York hide $1 million from theUnited States Internal Revenue Service byproviding the author with “a natural personnominee” — a straw man who worked for MossackFonseca — who pretended to be the owner of aninvestment account with HSBC bank in Guernsey,an island nation in the English Channel.

“We do not provide beneficiary services to deceivebanks,” said Mossack Fonseca in written answersto ICIJ.

Most wanted

Though Mossack Fonseca publicly says it“conducts exhaustive due diligence to verify thelegitimacy of each our clients” and says it wouldnever work with political gra�ers, criminals orother shady characters, the firm’s internal recordspaint a di�erent picture.

An analysis by ICIJ found, for example, thatMossack Fonseca has worked with at least 33companies and people blacklisted by U.S.government because of evidence that they’d beeninvolved in wrongdoing, such as terrorism,narcotics tra�icking or because they aided rogueregimes such as North Korea or Iran.

Mossack Fonseca said it “does not foster orpromote unlawful acts” and has “never knowingly

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Rafael Caro Quintero

allowed the use of our companies” by individualsworking with sanctioned governments. In mostcases, the obligation to vet customers belongs tothe banks, law firms and other intermediaries thatare the link between the Panama firm and theowners of their shell companies, it said.

The leaked files show that in some cases MossackFonseca’s loose procedures allowed blacklistedindividuals and other questionable clients to slipby without the firm itself knowing who they were.

In other instances, the files suggest that MossackFonseca made a financial calculation to hang ontoclients who were big sources of fees for thecompany, even a�er they were revealed byauthorities to be undesirable.

In an episode involvingRafael Caro Quintero,the one-time head ofthe Guadalajara drugcartel in Mexico, thefirm’s actions wereapparently based on amore visceral

consideration — fear.

Authorities arrested Caro Quintero in Costa Rica in1985 for the torture and murder of U.S. drug agentEnrique “Kiki” Camarena. He was extradited toMexico and sentenced in 1989 to 40 years in prison.The Mexican government confiscated his wealth —including a property that belonged to an o�shorecompany set up by Mossack Fonseca — andhanded it over to Costa Rica’s government, whichthen passed it to Costa Rica’s National OlympicCommittee.

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The files show that in March 2005, Costa RicanOlympic o�icials asked Mossack Fonseca to helpthem obtain clear title to the property.

A lawyer working for Mossack Fonseca told theCosta Rican visitors that the o�shore company’sshareholders would have to decide. A document inCaro Quintero’s company files labeled “Casedetails > shareholders” contained only a notation:“No data found!” But the lawyer wrote in aninternal email exchange that it “appears the realowner of the estate, and therefore of the company,was the narcotra�icker Rafael Caro Quintero.”

Mossack, one of three directors listed for thecompany, wasn’t interested in getting on CaroQuintero’s bad side.

“Compared to Quintero even Pablo Escobar was ababy!” he wrote in an email exchange, the upshotof which was that Mossack Fonseca would resignfrom its representation of Caro Quintero’s o�shore.“I don’t want to be among those Quintero visitsa�er jail.”

In 2013, Caro Quintero was released from prison ona technicality and immediately disappeared. Heremains at large and is back on Interpol’s MostWanted list.

Playing defense

Despite the notoriety of some of its clients,Mossack Fonseca has managed to keep aremarkably low profile. The Economist called it“the tight-lipped Mossack Fonseca” in a 2012article about o�shore middlemen.

That same year, according to the files, the firm

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Panama Papers The Power Players

Alaa MubarakSon of former Egyptian president

Explore the o�shore connections...

engaged the services of Mercatrade S.A., acompany that provides “online reputationmanagement.”

The contract promises to launder MossackFonseca’s image by removing negative entries onthe Internet related to 12 keywords in English andSpanish: “Lavado de dinero, lavado de activos,evasión fiscal, fraude fiscal, Delito, Trafico dearmas, Money Laundering, Tax Evasion, Tax Fraud,dirty Money, scandal, escándalo.”

Mossack Fonseca has since retained one of theworld’s most powerful public relations agencies,Burson-Marsteller, which specializes inrepresenting controversial clients, includingdictators in Argentina, Indonesia and Romania andUnion Carbide a�er a deadly chemical explosion inBhopal, India.

Despite the attempts at public relations, nationshave begun to take a harder look at MossackFonseca’s practices.

In 2012 and 2013regulators in theBritish Virgin Islandshit the firm with aseries of fines forviolating the country’santi-money-laundering rules,

including a $37,500 penalty for failing to properlyscreen a “high risk” client — Alaa Mubarak, the sonof Egypt’s ousted former dictator.

In February 2015, German authorities launched aseries of raids on the Commerzbank o�ice andprivate homes in Frankfurt. Süddeutsche Zeitung

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reported at the time that the German authoritieswere considering legal actions against MossackFonseca employees for possible contributions totax evasion involving the bank’s o�ices in nearbyLuxembourg.

In early 2016 in Brazil, Mossack Fonseca becameone of the targets of a bribery and moneylaundering investigation dubbed “Operation CarWash,” which is rapidly growing into one of thebiggest corruption scandals in Latin Americanhistory.

Prosecutors allege that Brazilian businessescooperated with each other to divide up thebidding for contracts with state-controlled oilconglomerate Petrobras, inflating prices and usingthe extra money to bribe politicians and oilcompany o�icials and to enrich themselves.

Brazilian prosecutors claim Mossack Fonseca’so�ice in Brazil helped some of the defendants bycreating shell companies that were used to commitcrimes. At a news conference in January 2016, theycalled Mossack Fonseca “a big money launderer”and announced they had filed criminal chargesagainst five employees of Mossack Fonseca’sBrazilian o�ice, involving crimes ranging frommoney laundering to destroying and hidingdocuments.

The firm denies any wrongdoing in the case. It saidin a statement that the Mossack Fonseca o�ice inBrazil is a franchise, and the Panama law firm,which practices only in Panama, “is beingerroneously implicated in issues for which it has noresponsibility.”

The argument was similar to the one used in Vegas.

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Las Vegas Boulevard. Photo: McClatchy / RondaChurchill

The recently settledcourt action in LasVegas was begun by aU.S. company, NMLCapital, which iscontrolled bybillionaire investorPaul Singer — a hedgefund manager perhapsbest known for hismassive donations tothe U.S. Republican Party.

Mossack Fonseca was not a defendant, but it hasbeen the subject of court orders seeking to obtaininformation about Nevada companies that thehedge fund claimed had been set up throughMossack Fonseca by Lázaro Báez, a businessmanclose to former Argentine presidents NéstorKirchner and Cristina Fernández.

Internal emails obtained by ICIJ show MossackFonseca employees in Panama scrambled to hideor destroy evidence of the firm’s control of MFNevada out of concern that the court case mightlead to a search of the Nevada branch.

Another concern, the emails show, was whetherthe manager of the MF Nevada branch, PatriciaAmunategui, could be forced to testify. In oneemail, a Mossack Fonseca o�icial said the parentfirm wanted her to “behave as if she was aprovider” — acting as if she was leading anindependent U.S. company that had a businessrelationship with Mossack Fonseca but noownership connection.

But Mossack Fonseca o�icials worried that she

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DID YOU FIND THISINTERESTING?

WORTH SHARING?

wasn’t savvy enough to pull it o�.

Mossack Fonseca’s IT manager wrote that ITsta�ers were concerned Amunategui “does nothave the skills to pass a basic audit withoutallowing ourselves to be in evidence — Look out!!!.. . I’m deeply worried about Mrs. Patricia forgettingthings and getting very nervous. I think that in thissituation it could easily become clear that we arehiding something.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach rejected theparent firm’s attempt to distance itself from MFNevada.

He noted that the branch manager’s contract wassigned by the firm’s partners, Mossack andFonseca, and that she received “all of herdirections” from a Mossack Fonseca employee wholives and works in Panama. “Mossack Fonseca &Co.’s own website advertises the services of M.F.Corporate Services as its own,” the judge wrote.

The judge ruled in March 2015 that MossackFonseca and MF Nevada were one in the same.

Contributors to this story: Rigoberto Carvajal,Emilia Diaz-Struck, Cécile Schilis-Gallego, MarCabra, Mago Torres and Sol Lauría

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